


Into the Night

by dragonbacon59



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Costumes Becoming Real, F/F, Fairy!Emily, Fluff and Humor, Halloween, Halloween AU, Halloween Costumes, My First AO3 Post, Plot Twists, tiny gay Tracer is gay, werewolf!Tracer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-01-27 00:29:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12569616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonbacon59/pseuds/dragonbacon59
Summary: Emily meets most of the surviving and present Overwatch members for the first time at Winston's Halloween party.  The otherwise pleasant evening is interrupted by inclement weather.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt at creating more Lenily content here in the Overwatch fandom. I've been reading fics here on the ao3 for a while now, and I finally got around to writing one of my own. This started as a neat, fluffy Lenily fic that would be only ten thousand words or so, and, uh, oops. I figured I should post this much before Halloween passed, so here's the first little bit of my fic! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Special thanks to my editor, GrayBlueGreen, for her important edits and for the title!

“Hey, Em, I’m ho-ome!” Lena announced. She finished closing the door behind her, and turned to see her girlfriend in perhaps the strangest outfit she had ever worn. She started at Emily’s short, blond wig, and the pink roses that were carefully twirled into it. She glanced downward at the black corset that sat over a short red tulle dress with a ridiculous excuse for sleeves. Finally, Lena’s eyes found their way to the impressively large, semi-transparent red fairy wings that were presumably attached to her girlfriend’s back by dark sorcery, because Lena couldn’t see any straps anywhere on the outfit. It looked like it had taken her at least an hour to get fully ready. Emily’s arms were folded in front of her, one of them holding a red, star-shaped wand, as she nervously waited for Lena’s approval. She simply laughed, shaking her head, and said, “You look fantastic, love,” as she moved in to hold her girlfriend. Emily smiled and happily returned the embrace, but after just one kiss, she shooed Lena towards the bedroom.  
“Good, now go get ready! We were already late when you said you were ‘almost here’ ten minutes ago!” Lena barely put her things down in the entryway of their modest London flat before Emily physically pushed her into the bedroom, where Lena’s costume was laid out on the bed. Despite Emily’s impatience, she carefully helped Lena out of her accelerator. Their flat was uniquely equipped (courtesy of a certain scientist whose party they were late for) to make sure that Lena stayed in the here and now, but the act of actually removing her anchor in time was always a worrisome experience for her. Emily daintily lifted the accelerator over Lena’s head, and the latter exhaled a grateful sigh. The pair had done this song and dance hundreds of times by now, but it still felt like a sacred ritual between them.   
Lena stood up and looked proudly at the costume she’d definitely made completely by herself, and without any help at all from Emily, especially not with the sewing. After a moment of changing (with Emily watching, which was always nice for both of them), Lena was wearing a classic red lumberjack-style flannel shirt and a purposefully ripped pair of dark blue jeans. A large, handmade (again, definitely without any help from Emily) wolf ear headband, perfectly matched with her spiky hair, sat on her head. Lena was especially proud of the silver helix piercings she’d put in the right ear, to make it more her style. The final part of the costume was the brown wolf tail, which poked out straight of the back of her jeans. The couple put Lena’s accelerator back on, and they began to walk out of their flat.   
Emily coyly pulled on Lena’s exposed tail as they left the bedroom, eliciting a yelp and a blush from the brunette. “Oi!” Lena exclaimed. “I thought you said we were late!”  
“We are,” Emily said with a mischievous grin. “I just had to do that.” She then quickly made her way to the door, giving Lena no opportunity to respond with a similar prank. Lena began grumbling with indignance as she reluctantly put on her sneakers, awkwardly unable to fully sit down because of the tail that her loving girlfriend had just violated.

The couple showed up almost half an hour late at Winston’s London residence. Emily couldn’t help but feel a little nervous, the only Overwatch member she’d ever met was the gorilla himself, when the pair had visited him last Christmas. Lena said that this time, several more members had been invited. Trying to shake off her fears, Emily daintily pressed the high-tech doorbell with the tip of her wand, and the two laughed at her commitment to her “character.” The door was swung wide open by a huge gorilla dressed, of course, like an astronaut. “Lena, Emily, so glad you could make it!” He beamed, pulling the two into an embrace with one huge arm. Lena had gotten quite used to being crushed into hugs by the two-ton gorilla, but Emily had a reason to protest.   
“Hey, hey, watch the wings!” She exclaimed.   
“O-oh, uh, sorry…” the gorilla awkwardly put the women down. Emily fretted over her slightly crushed wings, but Lena just laughed and said, “Good to see you, big guy!”  
Winston backed away from his massive doorframe to let the two inside his home. As they entered, they were greeted by a nigh-excessive amount of Halloween decorations. They were used to Winston going all out, but this display was impressive, even for him. Cobwebs clung to every corner, every light in the room was either black or orange, jack-o-lanterns were the centerpiece of every table, and, most impressively, a huge macabre chandelier hung from the ceiling. It looked like it was made of heavy iron, and instead of electric lights, it held actual burning candles.   
The couple roamed the party, meeting all of the members of Overwatch who had been able to make it to Winston’s party. For Emily, it was strange meeting the people that Lena regularly trusted with her life. She’d heard about some of them tangentially through Lena’s work stories, but it was odd to finally put names to faces, or, at least, Halloween costumes. Emily dutifully held onto her girlfriend’s hand as they navigated the tables and decorations to meet a gigantic, white-haired man dressed like a colonel, and a lithe, older woman in a pirate outfit. As they approached, Emily heard Lena whisper, “Don’t comment on the eyepatch - it’s real!”  
“LENA! SO GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IT!” The man bellowed in a heavy German accent. The pirate woman next to him shook her head, clucking her tongue.   
“Hey, Reinhardt!” Lena bubbled, jumping up to hug the giant man. She quickly hopped down, and turned to present Emily. “Ana, Rein, this is my girlfriend Emily. Em, this is Ana and Reinhardt.”   
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Emily said sheepishly.   
“And I, you, Miss Emily,” Reinhardt said softly, offering to kiss her hand. “Lena talks about you almost constantly.” His tone wasn’t at all patronizing of Lena, but she did blush when Emily raised an eyebrow at that comment.   
“I’ve heard a lot about you, too,” Emily mumbled in Ana’s direction. “Lena said you came back from the dead.”   
This elicited a laugh from the older woman. “Well, if by ‘dead’ she meant ‘Hawaii,’ then yes!” She joked. Her demeanor softened. “Thank you for your concern, dear. But I’m an old soldier. We’re very hard to kill.” Her soft, motherly tone was comforting to Emily.  
The pair flitted about the party, enjoying the atmosphere and the fantastic catering service that Winston had evidently hired. They ran into Angela and Fareeha, dressed as a witch and her cat familiar. It was clear that quite a bit of effort went into Angela’s costume, while Fareeha simply wore black clothing and the classic ears and tail. More than one “cat vs. dog” joke was made at Lena and Fareeha’s expense.  
Genji was there as well. Emily was subjected to the cheesy line, “My Halloween costume? Cyborg ninja!” which, according to Lena, Genji had been saying for years. She wondered why he hadn’t simply used that time to make a costume, but oh well.  
Emily was also introduced to a certain Swede, dressed as a Viking. “So this is the broad that our little Tracer wouldn’t shut up about on the way back from King’s Row!” The stout man exclaimed. The pair were both sheepish at that.  
The last guest, even later to the party than Lena and Emily, was none other than Jesse McCree. His outfit was surprisingly detailed. According to him, it was a reference to an old vampire movie, though neither of them had ever heard of it. Lena was sure that no vampire hunter would wear a hat like that, but Jesse had managed to keep his on throughout everything he’d been through, so perhaps it wasn’t too impossible. “Jesse!” Lena chuckled.   
“Hey there, speedy!” The man drawled. “Is this the lady herself?”  
“In the flesh,” Emily replied. She couldn’t help but feel a little awkward. She’d never had the opportunity to meet Lena’s “real” family, but it seemed that this was her real family now. If you could call a gorilla, a cyborg, a man who still wore cowboy hats in this day and age, a sixty-year-old woman with an eyepatch, and a bunch of other people just as strange a family. 

The party continued well into the night. Emily became much more comfortable around the former members of Overwatch. They were a band of elite, highly dangerous, broken idiots that all made up a big, weird family. And Lena was a part of it. Emily felt a strange pride as she watched her comparatively tiny girlfriend joke around with the massive forms of Reinhardt and Winston.   
There was a sudden flash of lightning outside. Emily was the only one who jumped. Every other member of the party quickly, instinctively, reached for something, mostly things that weren’t there. Jesse was the only one who was actually carrying his revolver (his argument was that it fit his costume), but he managed to realize that there was no real threat before he drew it. Emily just snuggled tighter with her girlfriend.   
“It’s really coming down out there,” Winston remarked, adjusting his glasses. The mirthful atmosphere of the party became a little muted as the whole group just silently watched the rain run down Winston’s picture window. For a time, the entire party was caught in the intrinsically human activity of watching a storm.   
Slowly, they peeled off. McCree went to raid the drinks that Winston had bought, sure that some of them had to contain alcohol. Fareeha managed to sneak Angela away, and she looked mortified when Ana quickly did the same with Reinhardt. Torbjörn and Winston, the only members remaining with Lena and Emily on the couch, gave each other an awkward look and made their way together towards the food.  
“Y’know, love, I could sit and watch the rain with you all day, but sitting on this tail is starting to get bloody uncomfortable,” Lena announced.  
“I have a similar feeling about these wings,” Emily agreed. The two stood up, ready to mill around the party. They walked, hand in hand, towards the center of the room. However, as they began to walk under Winston’s impressive iron chandelier, another bolt of lightning from the storm outside struck the residence. The bolt zipped through wiring, metal support beams, down the chandelier, and finally, right into the accelerator on Lena’s chest. Everything went dark.

 

Emily woke up with a faceful of dirt and the dim sensation of something occasionally smacking her in the side. “Mmm… Lena?” She called out groggily. “Did we go camping?” There was no immediate response. She managed to pull her face off of the ground, and heard very low, very deep snoring. Emily sat up and rubbed her eyes. Her hair felt different. It was shorter, and styled differently. Emily pulled it down in front of her face, and, most surprisingly, she’d become a blonde. She looked around and quickly found Lena, still asleep next to her. Immediately, Emily panicked, as her accelerator was nowhere to be found. Emily grabbed her girlfriend by the shoulders, shaking her. “Lena? Lena! I can’t find your accelerator, do you feel okay? Stay with me, okay, don’t go anywher-”  
Lena felt someone shaking her awake. Irritated at being woken up, she indignantly opened her eyes. Straddling her was an unearthly beautiful woman in a red dress. She had blonde hair with pink flowers woven in. The woman seemed to be yelling about something. “Just, hang onto me, okay? We’ll find Winston and he can fix this-”   
“Emily, you’re a blonde now,” Lena groggily said, still only half awake. It only took her a moment, though, to feel the worrisome lack of a weight on her chest. She closed her eyes and waited for the horrible, sinking feeling in her stomach when she was about to be thrown wildly across time and space. And she waited. And waited. And… nothing. Lena hesitatingly opened one eye, as if she could prevent the world around her from changing if she snuck up on it. When she looked, she found that her girlfriend, still dressed like a gorgeous fairy, was staring back at her intently, clutching her shoulders. The two of them shared a moment, hoping that the other wouldn’t disappear. To their relief, neither did.  
Emily finally broke the silence by saying, “Darling, you have ears on your head. And you’ve been hitting me with your tail.” Lena reached up with her hand to confirm this, and sure enough, there was an extra pair of furry, wolf like ears up there. Most impressively, the right ear still had helix piercings. She made no effort to stop tail-smacking her girlfriend. The two of them took in each others’ appearances for a moment. The party, the storm, and the flash of lightning flooded back to them. “Did we…” Emily began.  
“Get struck by lightning, travel through perhaps time and/or space, into some insane universe where our Halloween costumes are real?” Lena finished.  
“Our lives are so… bizarre,” Emily remarked.   
“Tell me about it.”  
The two examined their own appearances for a beat. Lena awkwardly craned her neck to look behind herself and try to see her tail. It seemed to attempt to avoid her gaze, and she actually followed it, running in a circle for a moment. Realizing her folly, she simply reached down with her hand and grabbed the rebellious appendage. “You can’t get away from me, I’ve got thumbs,” she proudly told the tail. She heard a giggle, and Emily had apparently watched the whole exchange, fluttering about six inches in the air. “How is that fair?” Lena griped. “You get to fly and all I have is.. better hearing.”  
“Well, normally you can travel through time, so I think the universe owes me this,” Emily joked. She fluttered forward to kiss Lena on the cheek. “We’re gonna figure this out, okay?” She said. “We’ll find… whatever it is we need to find in order to get home.”  
The pair examined their surroundings, and they were eventually able to deduce that they were in a forest. They picked a direction and started to walk. Emily debated if asking this question would be rude, but she simply couldn’t help herself.   
“Lena?”  
“Mm?”  
“Do you… smell anything?”  
Lena stopped. Emily turned to see her hands were on her hips. She was frowning.  
“What? It’s a valid question!” Lena’s frown intensified. “Look, I know you still have your normal nose, which is just as adorable by the way, but-” Emily cut herself off, as Lena’s expression remained just as intimidating.“I was just wondering if you could, like, smell a town nearby, or… something,” she stammered. Lena’s face softened, but only barely.   
“Well, maybe you could just fly up above the treetops and get a better view,” she suggested. Emily was dumbfounded.   
“Why… why didn’t I think of that…” she said aloud, mostly to herself. Sympathetically, Lena gave her a peck on the cheek.   
“Because you aren’t best friends with a woman with a jetpack, love,” she said gently, milking the absurdity of the statement.   
Emily shrugged at that, and looked upwards. The trees they were walking amongst were rather tall, at least four times her own height. She thought about going upward.   
The trees didn’t get any closer.   
To Lena, it appeared as though Emily was trying to move something with her mind. She allowed her girlfriend to struggle for half a minute or so, before she finally broke the relative silence of Emily’s focused grunts. “It looks like hoverin’s all you can do, love,” she said.   
“Yeah, I guess so,” Emily said, trying not to be disappointed.

The pair continued walking (well, only Lena actually walked) farther through the forest, until the trees eventually started to thin. “Hey, I think I see somethin’!” Lena exclaimed. Sure enough, glimpses of stone were visible in the distance. Square buildings. Civilization! Lena sprinted towards it, excited to get out of the forest.  
“Lena, wait!” Emily called after her. The only reason she was able to catch up was because Lena was used to being able to manipulate time to run faster. Emily was barely able to fly close enough to grab her shoulder. “Oof!” Lena exclaimed as she was abruptly pulled backwards. “Oi! What gives?”  
“Hey, at least I didn’t pull your tail,” Emily teased. “But, Lena, think for a moment. That looks like a town. Full of people. Normal people, no fairies or half-werewolves. I mean, yeah, there’s definitely something weird going on here, but I think it’s safer if we at least try to look like normal people when we go in there.”  
“... all right…” Lena slowly admitted. “How do you suggest we go about doing that?”  
Emily hadn’t planned that far. “Um... “ she began. She looked down at the wand that she’d been absentmindedly carrying the whole time. “Maybe I can…” She waved it in Lena’s face, thinking about how her girlfriend used to look. For some reason, she thought back to the King’s Row uprising. She thought of the city that she knew and loved, invaded. She remembered turning a corner and staring down the barrel of a huge minigun. Then, a flash of blue curved around the robot, and suddenly she was safe around the corner. The blaze of gunfire was heard from where she’d just been a millisecond ago. A gorgeous girl with short brown hair and a blue visor over her eyes was staring at her, asking if she was okay. Emily thought of that face, for the time that she’d known it. How it had subtly changed over the years. How she’d grown to love the woman it belonged to.  
Then, she booped her girlfriend’s nose with her fairy wand.  
Lena’s eyes crossed as she tried and failed to stay focused on the wand as it got closer and closer to her nose. When she felt it gently tap her, it emitted a bit of dust, and she felt the urge to sneeze. When she did, she felt the same. “There we go!” Emily said proudly. Lena was about to say that she still felt her ears, but she watched Emily do a little twirl around herself, and suddenly her red fairy dress became more modest and villager-like. Her wings had disappeared, but she was still fluttering. “Oh, right,” she said absentmindedly, gently touching down.  
Lena looked down at her clothes, and they looked more fitting of a classical Gothic villager. “Em, you can do magic,” Lena beamed.   
“Yeah, I… I guess I can.” Emily said. “Be careful, you just look different, all the werewolf-y bits are still there.”  
Lena nodded. “So, to the… Halloween… village, then?”

The two tried to walk into the town like they weren’t lesbians from another universe whose Halloween costumes had just become real. And, all things considered, they did an okay job of it. They walked with linked arms instead of held hands (Lena insisted it was more classical) and just tried to look like they belonged. Emily’s invisible wingtips occasionally brushed against Lena’s shoulder, and Lena’s tail smacked Emily’s thigh every so often.   
Other than that, things were going swimmingly.


	2. A Drunken Huntsman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily and Lena navigate this new world that they've stumbled upon. They quickly run into a familiar, drunken cowboy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Shows up ~2 holidays late, with Starbucks)  
> Hey, it's been high time since I updated this! I'm currently ignoring the exam I have in two days, but here's a new chapter for Into The Night! Just in time for... Halloween...

The pair tried and failed to look inconspicuous as they entered one of the larger buildings in the town, and one of the few that didn’t look like someone’s personal residence: a tavern. Emily made her way through its saloon-style doors without issue, though when Lena entered, they almost closed on her tail. She quickly manager to regain her composure, though, even as Emily let out a stifled giggle.  
The tavern was rectangular, long and wide, with little depth. Most of the seating appeared to be at the bar that took up the length of the opposite wall, though there were only approximately two booths with most of their upholstery intact. It was around midday, so the couple didn’t expect the establishment to be filled with customers.  
In fact, there was only one other patron.  
A passed-out, bearded man, with a black cowboy hat resting next to him.  
“... Jesse?” Lena asked, incredulous. The man’s unconscious form gave no answer.  
“That’s definitely him, right?” Emily inquired. Lena sighed, nodding.  
“Even in this weird other universe I’m still finding him in bars,” she muttered, gently reaching over the man for his hat.  
And, like lightning, Jesse McCree’s hand shot upwards from where it was slumped on the bar, catching her wrist. “No one… touches the hat…” he sleep-spoke.  
Lena, unimpressed, just put her free hand on her hip. “Jesse, get up,” she pleaded.  
“I dunno any Jesse,” he said, making a show of lifting his face from the bar. “But if you’re lookin’ for the best vampire hunter in these parts, then come back tomorrow, when I’m… just as drunk.”  
The bartender, a stockier woman in a plain white apron, who had silently watched this whole exchange, couldn’t contain her chortle. “More like the only vampire hunter in these parts, Van Helsing,” she scoffed. “Nobody’s even heard about one of your blood-suckers for years.”  
McCree picked up a totally empty tankard next to him and pretended to drink. “That’s because I’m so good at my job,” he joked. He finally turned to the women who’d so rudely awoken him from his drunken stupor. “Now, what do we have here?”  
“Jesse, it’s me, Lena!” A very exasperated Tracer exclaimed, finally managing to wrench her hand free of the gunslinger’s iron grip. A look of complete non understanding hung on his face.  
“What my sweet, adorable companion here is trying to say, sir,” Emily soothed, “Is that we’re interested in hiring you.” Lena quickly understood what Emily was getting at and played along.  
“Yeah!” Lena exclaimed, too loudly. She took a breath and continued in her indoor voice. “We have a very, erm… secret mission for you.” The gunslinger feigned disinterest.  
“Oh, yeah?” He asked. “What’s in it for me?”  
“Um…” Emily began. “Gold?” She looked to Lena for confirmation, All she got in return was a halfhearted shrug.  
This worked for Jesse, though, who actually stood up for the first time since their conversation began. “Sounds good to me. Let’s meet somewhere where we can talk a little more privately.” He let go of the bar, staggering just a little, and led the couple out of the tavern. 

“So, what’s the job?” Jesse asked the pair when they had walked around to the other side of the tavern, facing the forest. “Um, about that,” Lena said.  
“We, uh… we’re not necessarily from… around… here…” Emily fumbled, unsure of how to begin their odd tale. “I think it might just be easier if we show you.” She let go of her concentration on their disguises. Lena’s ears and tail returned to view, and she stretched her own wings out.  
Immediately, Jesse was taken aback. He started reaching for his holster with one hand, fumbling with a somewhat out-of-reach pocket in his jacket with the other. Lena managed to grab him just as he’d freed a few silver bullets from their safe location in his lapel.  
“Oi!” Lena exclaimed. “We’re not trying to hurt you!” Jesse was attempting to wrestle the shorter woman back, but with surprisingly little success, considering her size.  
“What the hell else would a werewolf want with someone like me?” He exclaimed defensively. Lena simply growled in response. Emily fluttered next to her girlfriend, trying to ignore how handily she’d just pinned a much larger man to the stone wall of the tavern.  
“Look, we’re not from this world. But, in our world, there’s someone just like you who’s a very dear friend of ours. We’re very lost and looking for a familiar face,” Emily pleaded. Jesse remained silent. Emily took a shot in the dark based on the costume she’d seen in their own timeline.  
“If you don’t help us, I’ll tell everyone in the village about this,” she said, removing his left glove.  
Sure enough, the hand that their Jesse had lost in battle was, in this world, glowing red with demonic energy. “All right, all right, I get it,” The gunslinger pleaded. “I yield.” Lena slowly released her grip on him, her tail slowly relaxing from its previous, stick-straight position, and returning to a neutral half-wag. Emily politely handed over his thick, black glove, which he promptly donned once more. “All right then,” Jesse stated. “Madam Fairy and Madam Werewolf from some ‘other world.’ What can I do ya for?”  
“Firstly, I’m Lena, and that’s Emily,” Lena introduced.  
“Van Helsing,” the gunslinger returned.  
“As for how you can help us, well... “ Emily began.  
“We were sort of hoping you could tell us,” Lena finished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading through to the end! It's a waaayyyyy shorter chapter this time, I know, but you can likely expect much more frequent updates to this fic as I avoid interaction with my family over break! I hope you enjoyed!  
> -Lena


	3. Three Wanderers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily and Lena travel with their newfound companion, and from him, they learn about the tale of a certain twice-defeated mad doctor..

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The long-awaited third chapter is finally here! At this rate, I'll have about 5 chapters by next Halloween...
> 
> (once this semester ends I think I'll have more time but I can't make any promises please forgive me and thank you for your patience)

“So, lemme get this straight,” Jesse began. Lena and Emily exchanged a look about his choice of phrase, but allowed him to continue. “You two ladies time-travelled here?”

“Sure did!” Lena piped up. “Well,  _ I _   sorta do it all the time, but travelling this far is something that only happens when things go  _ really _   wrong, and it’s never lasted any more than a couple seconds before I’m thrown somewhere else.”

“Also, I’m here this time,” Emily added. Lena squeezed her hand and smiled. Emily had secretly always worried that one day Lena would vanish for good, but never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she’d come along. It was… nice, in a very strange way. 

“Hm.” The gunslinger huffed. “Well, I dunno much about magic or time travel and whatnot, but I can certainly take you ladies to in the direction I was headed.”

“And where’s that?” Emily asked. The gunslinger smiled at the pair, as if he were suddenly telling a scary story. 

“ _ Adlersbrunn _ , _ ” _   he said, the ominousness of his statement heavily undercut by the fact that he was speaking to a woman with werewolf ears and a woman with fairy wings behind a bar early in the afternoon on a rather sunny fall day. 

“Oi, wait a minute,” Lena said. “I think I remember an old ‘scary story’ that Reinhardt told during my first Halloween in Overwatch…”

“Adlersbrun ain’t a story, little lady,” Van Helsing interrupted. “And neither is the tale of Doctor Junkenstein.”

“Yeah, that was his name!” Lena said, her memory returning. She began explaining it in a terrible and cute mad scientist voice. “He was all ‘ooo, I’m Doctor Junkenstein, and you’re all gonna paaayyy,’ or whatever.” 

The women’s new companion was unimpressed. “That’s not what he sounded like.” 

For Emily, it was rather humorous, to say the least, to watch her half-werewolf girlfriend debate a version of a man she’d just met who was even more ridiculously dressed than she had been told he would be, but she could tell that the conversation wasn’t going anywhere.

“Okay, you two, we can debate  _ and   _ walk at the same time,” she chided. 

“Fair enough,” the gunslinger replied. “But Adlersbrunn is definitely where people as strange as you two ladies gather at this time of year.”

 

“So... this ‘Doctor Junkenstein,’” Emily began.

“Yes?” Lena and Jesse replied in unison, immediately looking at each other, surprised the other had responded. Emily sighed.

“He’s a mad scientist?”

The gunslinger spoke up first. “More or less. When the lord sent for our aid two years ago, he said that the doctor had been diggin’ up bodies… those other three wanderers and I spent an entire night with our backs against the doors of a castle, fightin’ endless waves of… former Adlersbrunn citizens.” Lena put a hand over her mouth. Evidently, the whole zombie thing hadn’t been a part of Reinhardt’s version of the story. 

Emily wasn’t very enthused herself. “You spent an entire  _ night _   just… killing zombies?”

“Call ‘em whatever you like, there were a lot. For the first time in my life, I was genuinely worried I hadn’t brought enough bullets.”

“And there were more of you?”

“Four they were,” Lena said, quoting Reinhardt. “The soldier, the archer, the alchemist, and the gunslinger.” Van Helsing chuckled. 

“That soldier fella called me an ‘oddity,’ and I like yours better,” he said. 

“So what’d you do afterwards?” Lena asked, her previous grievances with their companion’s tale suddenly gone. “What happened to the other four wanderers?” The gunslinger shrugged. 

“Beats me. That archer fella went back home, somethin’ about a brother. The soldier and the alchemist… they didn’t really say. Seems like they had quite a history, and I reckoned it wouldn’t be polite to pry. As for me, well, I rode off into the sunset, lookin’ for more adventure.”

 

Lena and Emily exchanged a dry look. “Was that the name of that pub we found you in?” Lena asked. “‘The Sunset?’”

“I thought it was called ‘Adventure,’” Emily replied, oozing with sarcasm. Both women giggled with each other, much to their companion’s chagrin. 

“Laugh it up, why don’t ya…” the gunslinger grumbled. “I think I’m startin’ to remember why I travel alone.”

 

The very unlikely trio spent a few days travelling together. Emily became quite accustomed to being abruptly awoken by Lena’s tail rudely smacking some area of her body, and Lena enjoyed being gently roused by the fluttering of Emily’s wings. They didn’t often get to wake up together; Lena was so frequently out on missions that she’d either be gone in the mornings or so completely exhausted that Emily would have to head in to the office while Lena was still sprawled all over their bed. They almost always left each other notes, which ranged from pleasant morning messages to illegible 3AM scrawls. Sometimes Lena would even find Emily asleep on the couch, fully clothed, laptop still open on her knees. Once, Lena had woken up to a note on the counter that contained five lines of code, and sure enough, when she checked Emily’s laptop, there was a little message for her, right in the middle of the program Emily had been writing. She’d even properly formatted it as a comment, and still hadn't heard the end of it from her colleagues. They’d tried to tell Van Helsing that story, but they ultimately spent too much time explaining what computers were for it to really have any effect. 

 

After about four days of travel, the trio walked over a ridge (well, Emily floated) and found themselves looking upon a stone city. “Wait a tick…” Lena began. 

Van Helsing was about to introduce the women to the city of Adlersbrunn, but he looked over to see Emily tending to Lena and decided to wait. Meanwhile, Lena seemed to be caught in momentary reverie. “I.. I’ve seen this place…” she said. Emily’s whole demeanor immediately shifted to worrying over Lena. “What is it, luv? Where did you see it?”

“Brigitte told me about this city. Eichenwalde. She says Reinhardt began his life as a Crusader there, it’s where he lost his eye. The whole place apparently became a war zone during the Crisis.”

“As bad as King’s Row?” Emily hazarded. Lena looked her dead in the face, her gorgeous amber eyes as downtrodden as Emily had ever seen them. 

“Worse.” She said. The somber moment hung in the air. Finally, the women’s companion spoke up. “We’d best get movin’.” And so they did.

 

Once again disguised, Emily and Lena followed the gunslinger through the town. As they walked, they noticed the region’s battle scars. They weren’t immediately visible, but it didn’t take much effort to find them. Every so often, the trio would walk past a set of scorch marks on the stone ground, a crumbled wall, or an abandoned building. The people they passed by seemed rather tense, moving hurriedly and rarely conversing with each other. The ones who did seem to notice them often tossed second glances at the gunslinger, whispering to each other before darting off somewhere. Lena and Emily exchanged nervous glances, but their companion strode confidently on, the various belts and buckles that made up his outfit jangling softly. 

Soon, the trio was face-to-face with a pair of gargantuan wooden doors. The entrance to the castle was easily the most battered of all the scenery in Adlersbrunn. They were absolutely covered in scratches, scorches, gouges, and gashes. It seemed a miracle that they were still standing.

The gunslinger’s metal-clad knuckles, hidden under his thick leather glove, rapped gently against the battle-scarred oak. An entire minute passed. 

Slowly, gingerly, one of the massive doors creaked open, the hinges loudly protesting every inch. A face popped out. “Um, hello,” its owner, a younger-looking woman with a strong chin and determined eyes, greeted. “What is your business with the lord of Adlersbrunn?”

Emily looked over at Lena, and could immediately tell from her lover's face that this was yet another person she’d met. Emily hazarded a guess: “Brigitte?” She whispered. Lena nodded slightly. 

“The name’s Van Helsing,” their companion drawled. “Tell the Lord that we met a couple years back. He’ll remember.”

“Okay! Pleased to meet you.” The attendant smiled. She pulled the door open further, with some effort. As she did, Emily immediately noticed that she was  _ very _ muscular under her modest tunic. The trio entered the castle, and the massive oak shuddered closed behind them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please leave any feedback or anything in the comments!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for making it to the end! I'm very open to feedback, and, yes, the cliffhanger will definitely be resolved. Perhaps a certain mad doctor will make an appearance...
> 
> But seriously, thank you so much for reading this whole thing! I hope you liked it!


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